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Our vision is to create a world where mothers and their children are healthy and thriving. Our mission is to break down barriers to access, cost, and quality of oral health care for low-income mothers and their families in Pennsylvania through holistic health education and our Mobile Clinic's low to no-cost treatment.
At a young age, the world of dentistry has always inspired me because of the love it provided to the health care system. Nurturing Smiles was inspired and birthed out of my personal experience—several years of dealing with recurrent dental complications. My experience led me to my love for Dentistry.
Now that I'm in the dental field, I have encountered many young children affected by childhood caries and expecting mothers who don't realize the importance of oral health during pregnancy. These women were misinformed not to see a dentist during pregnancy. The misinformation that these women shared provided me with a passion for educating them, giving them accurate information, and access to care.
Sadly, childhood caries is also very prevalent, and making a difference is my reason. One way to prevent childhood caries in young children is to improve the oral health of pregnant women.
Research has established that poor oral health during pregnancy affects more than the expectant mother's oral health and can negatively impact her overall health and the child's oral health. Despite this, oral health is still the most neglected component of general health, even though poor oral health is linked to heart disease, stroke, and diabetic complications.
Pregnant women are prone to chronic gingival inflammation due to hormonal changes, which can progress to periodontal disease. Periodontal disease may lead to poor birth outcomes such as low birth weight/preterm birth and pre-eclampsia.
Bacteria can be transferred from the mother to the fetus during pregnancy and after delivery from the mother's mouth to the baby's mouth. Research shows that 1 in 4 women of childbearing ages has untreated cavities.
The framework to Nurturing Smiles represents the federal government's initiatives to oral health, such as the National Call to Action to Promote Oral Health. We believe that we can do our part to aid this change through our Vision, Mission, and the variety of services we will provide.
Nurturing Smiles believes that improving access to oral health services for pregnant women, women of childbearing ages, and children in underserved communities will ignite change. In addition to healthcare, we will develop programming to encourage and expose black/brown minority high school, college-level students to enter the dentistry field.
There is a need for a more racially diverse workforce in the dental profession. The benefit of a more diversified workplace is that patients find their health provider more relatable. We also hope that more minority students learning and pursuing dentistry will aid with the spread of knowledge throughout their communities.
Please review our most common questions asked to see if your question is listed. If not, contact us and we'll be happy to help!
Nurturing Smiles is a 5013c non-profit organization created to educate pregnant women and children about the importance of oral health.
We are stepping out of the norm and focusing on breaking down the barriers to access, cost, and quality of treatment through bringing our services to the families in their communities and places of comfort.
Unfortunately, at this time we do not accept any insurance. However, we have a sliding scale cost fee based on income and the size of the family.
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